Sounds like you two guys know a lot more about this than me. So, if I'm following, I'd need to look at how much work gets done per kilowatt/hour used. Or kW/h if I have the nomenclature right. And for me the initial cost of the system does have a bearing. Looking at cpuboss, the 2700k is behind the 4770k, but not by a lot. 2700k vs. 4770k: AVX vs AVX2, DDR3-1333 vs DDR3-1600, $83.22 vs $73.58 annual cost. Clock speed and turbo speed the same, memory cache amounts the same. $400 through amazon vs. $345 at newegg. If I understand right, for SOB I'd want to look for a 4770k?